TETC Minutes

February 2, 2010

 

Present: Ralph Tapper, Madeleine Florent, Shirley Thorne, Terry Sanford, Marina Cheeseman, Sylvia Warkentin, Myra Maynard, Helen Spencer

 

Business arising from the January Minutes

Trails

Ralph will send a copy of the amended motion concerning Municipalities having control over trails

 

TETC meeting time

Geoff Gallant would like to be able to attend TETC meetings, but Tuesday doesn’t work for him. Helen will consult with Cubs to see if it’s possible to have the room before 9pm on Thursdays or, failing that, find out if the fire hall meeting room is available.

 

Trail Maps

Helen passed along the new GPS data to Megan who will add it to the trail maps. Unfortunately she is no longer working for Rodolphe. Once the information is on the map Helen and Sylvia will meet with Rodolphe to discuss what else needs to be done and find out how we can help.

 

New Business

Coyotes

Madeleine reported that the coyote trapping season is over and so snares should now be removed. The season starts again in October. Nathan Spence of the department of wildlife has offered to give a talk about coyotes and snares on Feb 24th. This will be open to members of TETC, council and we could invite an ECT rep. Madeleine suggests we start a file on coyotes as she has done a considerable amount of research. We should document sightings of coyotes and note if there are any incidents of pets etc being affected by trapping.

 

TETC files

Since the TETC office closed, we have had considerable difficulty accessing our records. Equipment, leaflets, books etc are all stored and unused. Madeleine is concerned that important files will be lost and suggests we take a day to sort through all the stuff. We can donate useful stuff to school etc and clean out outdated stuff and re-file and catalogue the important stuff. Wed Feb 24 was agreed as the day for doing this. Madeleine, Shirley, Sylvia, Terry, Myra and Helen will help for all or parts of the day. There will be a break for skating! Other helpers are welcome too.

 

Meeting Between ECT and Torbay Town

TETC reps were invited to an information meeting between the East Coast Trail Association and the Town. Sylvia and Helen attended. ECT will be bringing the Torbay section of trail up to standard this year. This involves taking measures to protect the vegetation from trail users by installing board walk, stepping stones etc where needed. Drainage will be added where the trail is susceptible to flooding.  ECTA expressed their intention to ensure that where it is needed on the north side, the trail would continue to be both safe and suitable for farmer and hikers.  A bridge will be installed over North Pond River on the south side of Torbay. There is some discussion happening between ECTA and landowner over the location of the bridge. There is a time line during which the government funding must be spent which ends by the end of August. The trail route will remain as it already is. The town is supporting this with in-kind donations such as use of equipment. TETC offered support and were told that help with trail maintenance would be useful. Council will be reviewing all this at the next meeting.

 

Torbay Tree Day

A telephone chase through provincial offices resulted in Paul Power from Forestry becoming our contact person. He is finding out how many trees will be available for a Torbay Tree Day in spring when we will get community groups and individuals involved in planting tree seedlings in as many places as we can in Torbay. Spruce and larch seedlings should be available. Planting will probably take place over a month or so.

 

Budget

Ralph thought the requested TETC budget of $6,112.50 was approved. (He has since corrected this to say $4000 was approved for operations of TETC and $1000 for the rock garden). Since we are always saying we feel that the Town needs a staff person dedicated to environmental work, Ralph suggests we ask for a half time person in the TETC 2011 budget. All agreed this was a good idea.

 

Newsletter

We hope to release a TETC newsletter in late March/ early April. Myra will write about TETC hikes, Sylvia - ECT, Madeleine - coyotes and recycling, Helen - Torbay tree day and ATV damage. We also agreed to add a ‘Did you know?” column which will include useful and interesting information.

 

Rock Garden

Since we haven’t managed to contact Todd Boland about designing a plan for the rock garden, it was suggested that we make a list of what we want and put it into an ‘expression of interest’ for a plan and put it out to tender. Myra and Ralphe will do that.

 

Hikes

TETC hikes have been continuing whatever the weather, but there was some discussion of postponing them by a week if the weather is really awful. The hike details will be posted on the TETC website and the TETC Facebook account and a notice will go out by email. Postponements will go to all those places too. Sylvia will also try to get them on the town’s electronic sign. This month’s hike will be in the south side of Torbay.

 

Western Island Pond

We were delighted to hear that Ralphe put forward a motion to council to have the buffer zone at Western Island Pond and Gosse’s Pond rezoned as Conservation. The motion was passed unanimously by council at the last meeting.

 

Dominion Hill

The landowner who wants to put in a bed and breakfast at Dominion Hill has lodged an appeal with the Department of Municipalities, against the decision not to rezone the conservation land to residential. It was agreed that the appeal probably won’t be successful, but that the situation will be carefully monitored.

 

Paper Recycling

Helen asked for an update on the previously proposed paper recycling in Torbay. Ralph will bring this up at Council.

 

Recyclables

A bench has been installed to make access to the recycling box easier. Since un-rinsed bottles, un-removed caps and garbage continue to be a bit of a problem further education will continue in the newsletter and on a sign to be posted at the box. Ralph also suggests we leave some information leaflets in the box.